Does the "liberal" message really play?

Here's a very interesting post from the WSJ's political blog that outlines the ideological path our politics has taken over the last 40 years: "Is the Democrats' Message Flawed?".

Peter Brown argues:

After the 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000 and 2004 elections, Democratic leaders argued that the American people had not rejected their ideas or governing philosophy. Instead, they said, their nominee had not effectively communicated the party’s core message. It wasn’t the American people rejecting those views and values, they contended.

Whether that was an accurate reading of the electorate or a self-serving analysis by the party’s elites, it has made wonderful cocktail party fodder for years. But it has also been used as a rationale by those who didn’t see the string of defeats as a call to retool the party’s message.

My own studied view is that the liberal political agenda has needed retooling for a generation, but the true believers who cling to an updated version of FDR's New Deal coalition refuse to accept the lesson of lost elections. Republicans have been the beneficiaries of this monumental self-referential myopia, but conservatives have also failed to redefine their own agenda in the face of new challenges. (One would hope they will be quicker to respond to electoral defeat. See Paul Ryan's proposals under my "Policy Futures" post.)

You'd think the Obama-McCain choice would resolve the issue once and for all, but I have my doubts. The problem as I see it is that both partisan ideological extremes misinterpret mainstream America. I would say that the average non-partisan voter is neither liberal nor conservative and would eschew those labels for what might be better termed "tolerant traditionalism." But left partisans stereotype the "traditionalism" as ignorance, bigotry or religious fakery, while right partisans stereotype tolerance as licentiousness and moral degeneracy. These stereotypes are inconsistent and rejected by those to whom they are meant to be applied. However, we do have the empirical lessons of dozens and dozens of social and economic policies here and abroad that we can evaluate with objective judgments - it's more revealing when we refuse to accept those judgments.

The reason why this election may not resolve this issue is because Obama might be elected and his policy agenda may fail. McCain may win, and fail as well. Or both candidates may completely bastardize their respective ideological agendas, and succeed or fail on their own. The worst case would be for McCain to win and discredit conservatism, while Democrats lay the blame for electoral failure on racism. Then we'll be back at this same point 4 and 8 years from now, probably having learned nothing new about what we believe politically.